Due to admin having time constraints, the flow of posts will decrease significantly for ~ 1 month.

🇲🇩— Owner of PRO TV Сhișinău (regional affiliate for the biggest Romanian TV station, PRO TV) is 'pranked' by somebody posing as an American investor and caught on recording admitting to influence peddling by saying he can "do PR" for the American investor (to which he later admits is downright lobbying alongside politicians)

By all means of the Moldovan and Romanian law, this is illegal and categorized as influence peddling.

🇷🇴🇲🇩👋🇷🇺🛢⛽️❔ — 🇷🇺 Russian channel Rybar on Telegram:

"🇲🇩🇷🇺🇷🇴 Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean said today that his country has completely got rid of dependence on Russian gas supplies by “integrating into the European energy network”, and Romania has played a key role in this.

The news was enthusiastically picked up by Ukrainian publications, but there is nothing special to rejoice here.

📌 The government of Maia Sandu still refuses to answer one of the main questions on the Moldovan agenda: where exactly gas was purchased last winter. The authorities hide this information, referring to the state of emergency.

At the same time, it is known that Moldova overpays almost three times for gas compared to Europe.

And recently, an Energocom representative said that at the end of 2022, the Moldovan government purchased about 300 million cubic meters of gas under an agreement with the EBRD, and the remaining 200 million were purchased "under the secret orders of the Commission for Emergency Situations for 4 billion lei."

🔻The most obvious answer is that Moldova buys the same Russian gas through other European countries that are ready to resell it at inflated prices.

But you can make bright statements to Western partners. True, the real price has to be paid by ordinary citizens of Moldova, whose standard of living has seriously fallen and continues to fall due to rising prices."

#Geoeconomics

🔗 Source:

🇪🇺🤝🇲🇩— President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola to participate in the pro-European PAS-held and backed assembly "European Moldova" this Sunday

🇲🇩🤝🇪🇺 Doing a recap of the General Assembly "European Moldova" organised by PAS.

It was called by Maia Sandu during her last presidential speech over a month ago. It aimed to show to Moldova's European/Western partners that Moldova and the Moldovans are pro European integration.

Basically its intended to be this huge support rally for PAS's policies as PAS has seen its support dip in favor of pro-Russian parties.

While this whole event is supposed to be "voluntary" there have been plenty of accusations with proof given that personnel working for the government including, health personnel, police, gendarmerie and border agents, students, employees of other ministries and agencies are getting coerced to participate. PAS politicians encouraged Moldovans to come from overseas, and even to bring their children.

The socialists and communists have pledged to boycott the meeting. The Shor Party promised to come but said they will speak out against European Integration, a few other smaller parties agreed to come with some promising to criticise PAS and Sandu while the Romanian nationalist party and its Moldovan subsidiary, AUR Moldova, led by Vlad Bilețchi, pledged to promote unionist slogans and march for union.

The meeting will adopt a declaration for support of Moldova's European integration. It was already criticised by opposition politicians for being nothing more than a usual rally of PAS supporters.

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇲🇩🌾🪧⚡️ Moldovan farmers announced protests beginning June 7th.

Minister of agriculture, Vladimir Bolea, however, stated that the protests "lack reason" and that "he will not hesitate to bring real aid to farmers when the situation demands it".

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🧠💻 After introducing the first government AI in the world, nicknamed ION, (John) minister of digitalisation, Sebastian Burduja, announced plans to create IOANA (Joanne) the first government sponsored chatbot which will be able to answer questions given by citizens such as "how do I get a driver's licence".

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🟦🟨 Romanian prime-minister, Nicolae Ciucă: "Soon my term as prime-minister will end. After 1 year and a half, Romania has the manpower and other resources to be self sustainable even in the face of the war close to our borders, the multitude of problems regarding energy supply, the supply chain, inflation and other challenges, we made it work. We managed to achieve a 4.7% GDP growth and we managed to attract the largest amount of European funds ever granted to the Romanian government. We've consolidated our strategic partnerships with the United States, France and the United Kingdom. Romania remained a pillar of stability in the region. Romania can be considered a key regional player".

Regarding the 4.7% GDP growth figure, its for 2022.

Current statistics put the GDP growth for this year at 2.3% significantly below the 3.5-4% expectation of economists. Analysts still place the expected GDP growth for 2023 to be at 2.8% by the end of the year and it will be mostly carried by the construction sector which has seen a boom due to the EU funds being used to build several hundred km of motorways and private investors building new apartment complexes and offices. Industrial output, accounting for 1/4 of the Romanian GDP, will continue to decline for the 4th year in a row.

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🌹⚡️🗣 🇷🇴🟨🟦 — Digi24 | President of the social-democratic Party, Marcel Ciolacu, called for a temporary suspension of negotiations regarding the installation of the Ciolacu cabinet in order to fulfill the demands of the teacher and health unions which are going on strike next week.

The proposal was attacked by the liberals which blamed the social-dems for incompetence as they had the Ministry of Labour, the ministry responsible for the salaries the teachers and health workers want to be raised.

Of course, this stalling is nothing more than a scheme by the social-dems to pass on the responsibility from their side to their "friends" in the National Liberal Party in order for the liberals to have their reputation ruined while the social-dems are leaving unscathed.

Regarding the protests, all employees of the ministry of Education are expected to go on strike beginning Monday at 8 AM local hours. Health unions have announced a new protest on June 8th and are threatening with a general strike beginning July 1st if their salaries are not raised. People affiliated with the health syndicates, have stated that their protests will begin after the new cabinet is formed.

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴👨‍🏫🪧⚡️Digi 24 | Education minister, Ligia Deca, claimed that she is doing everything she can to prevent a general strike by teacher's unions... after the government and the syndicates didn't come to an agreement.

President of the Social-Democratic Party, Marcel Ciolacu, called for new negotiations with teacher's unions. He was, however, rebuffed by Marius Nistor, the president of the "Spiru Haret" Federation, the largest teacher's union in the country.

Nistor said: "Negotiations and invitations to talks are not sent through Facebook. We are not friends to have this kind of communication. [...] Such discussions are carried in the Victoria Palace [ the seat of the government n.r.] or at the Ministry of Education in person!".

Ciolacu made a last ditch appeal to teachers to not protest citing the "chaos it will cause for schools and the lives of thousands of families". Marius Nistor, the president of the largest union in the country hit back at Ciolacu, stating that the teachers warned the government in advance as far back as December having warned of future protests unless their issues were solved.

Nistor ended his statement by saying that what Ciolacu is doing at the moment is pure PR as he wasn't informed of any new planned meetings in the near future with government officials.

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🤝🇬🇧 The Romanian Navy will purchase two Sandown class minehunters from Britain worth 150 million EUR. The ships will be later modernised by the Romanian Navy to be able to support Naval Strike Missiles (NSMs) anti-ship missiles.

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴☢️🇺🇸 The modular nuclear reactors which are planned to be constructed in the town of Doicești, Romania, are to be opened with a two year delay as announced by the American company, NuScale.

The date for when the new nuclear PPT will be active is 2029 instead of 2027. If it had remained in 2027, Romania would have become the first country in the world to open a modular nuclear reactor PPT but this place will be taken by the United States.

The company, NuScale, didn't give clear answers as to why the project is delayed for 2 years.

🔗 https://www.zf.ro/companii/energie/reactoarele-nuscale-de-la-doicesti-pornesc-direct-cu-o-intarziere-de-21874636

@Wallachian_Gazette | 🐦 Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴🌾💧⚡️ Ziarul Financiar | After going through the droughts of 2020 and 2022, Romanian farmers are beginning to invest into new irrigation channels but it won't be enough without government and EU aid.

Climate change affected how Romanian farmers think and prepare for the new harvest. They are ready to pay from their own pockets for the most modern and water efficient irrigation systems but complain that the Romanian state mismanages the public irrigation systems which supply the farmers and their own irrigation systems with water.

Romanian prime-minister, Nicolae Ciucă, has pledged more investments into agriculture and each year, the amount of land that gets irrigated grows each year. The National Land Improvement Agency (ANIF) has prepared 1.35 million hectares for irrigation. Investments for 2023 plan to increase the number to 2 million for 2024. Despite these ambitions and what was achieved, over 3 million hectares were affected by drought in 2022 and impacted the harvest of wheat, corn, rapeseed, sunflower and other crops. 2022 was especially terrible as only 0.5 million hectares were irrigated.

The irrigable land is not distributed evenly. Brăila County holds 60% of the irrigable land area in Romania, the rest being spread out throughout all of the other 40 counties in the country. Farmers in Brăila hope that the government will be able to make 100% of the arable land in the country irrigable and not susceptible to drought.

Romania used to have a better public irrigation system. It was built by the communist administration of Nicolae Ceaușescu, and was efficient. After the fall of communism, the irrigation system fell into disrepair, was stolen piece by piece or sold for scrap leaving nothing in return except smaller crop yields.

Farmers are looking to increase their profits and need better crop yields as a result. They are already resorting to micro-irrigation or drip irrigation systems without looking to see if the spring and summer seasons will be rainy or not. However, the water, which is mostly extracted from underground, is the property of the state and they are heavily reliant on ANIF to pump it and ANIF is slow to repair and improve where issues exist.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇷🇴👨‍🏫🪧⚡️ Social-democratic leader, Marcel Ciolacu, suspends negotiations regarding the formation of a new government.

The term of the current prime-minister, Nicolae Ciucă, was supposed to end no later than June 1st, but it will be extended. Ciolacu says he will not negotiate unless the demands of the teacher's unions are met.

@Wallachian_Gazette

🇲🇩🤝🇪🇺 The program of the "European Moldova" Assembly.

Between 10-11 AM the people will gather in the Grand National Assembly Square in Chisinau after which the anthems of Moldova and the EU will be sung followed by a speech held by Moldovan president, Maia Sandu. More songs and speeches will follow from other politicians and at 1 PM a declaration will be adopted, likely the Moldovans "pledging" to never abandon the road to European integration.

@Wallachian_Gazette